You (Don't) Know Me
by the.eye.does.not.SEE
Summary: "You could join me." Letty & Javier & the bathtub from 1x02.


_**A/N** : I blame the show and its choice of props. Enjoy. :)_

* * *

When she got back into the suite, he was in the bath, and she nearly jumped out of her skin at the sight of him. His face registered nothing at her surprise—no amusement, no annoyance, no sympathy, nothing.

"I scared you?" he wondered aloud, as if her face were as unreadable as his.

"No." She shook her head at once. "No, I just… I wasn't sure if you were in the room."

"I am in the room."

His voice was quiet, controlled as usual, but she sensed the threat in it regardless. It had been the same threat since day one, since that other hotel a world away: _I own you_. She couldn't escape him here, probably couldn't escape him anywhere. He'd hunt her down, one way or another, until she repaid whatever labor that, in his mind, amounted to the fifty thousand she'd stolen from him.

She turned away from him, heading towards the door, the bedroom beyond, and the infinitesimal pocket of freedom she knew she could find out there so long as he was in here. She didn't make it more than two steps before he spoke again.

"But just because I am in the room doesn't mean you have to leave it." There was a pause—just long enough for a single heartbeat—and then, almost softly, he added, "You could join me."

She closed her eyes at the offer, feeling her feet slow to a standstill beneath her. She didn't open her eyes. She didn't turn to look at him. She didn't want to see the grin on his face—or worse, that calm, patient look that told her he expected nothing less than for her to do exactly as he instructed.

But he hadn't instructed her this time, not really. He'd said _could_.

Not _should_. Not _must_.

 _Could_.

 _You could join me_.

She opened her eyes and turned to look at him, knowing that, already, even without moving, she had taken a step towards him. Every breath she breathed was a step towards him. There wasn't any other direction to go, not now. Not if she wanted to live.

He leaned his head against the back of the tub, watching her. He must be making a bet with himself, she thought. Analyzing probabilities. She could see one scene after another play out in his mind as they played out in hers: if she joined him, if she didn't. If she played him, scorned him, or submitted to him.

The edge of her mouth twitched. She liked knowing there was someone else on this earth that saw the world the way she did: one possibility after another after another. To survive, you just had to be a good judge of character, and be willing to leave something (not everything, just something) up to chance.

She toed herself out of the flats she'd worn downstairs, first one and then the other, as she stepped towards him. She shrugged the sweater off, and let it drop onto the tiled floor. She watched how his eyes didn't leave her face, not even when she shed the rest of her clothes.

He was expecting her to get in directly in front of him, and so instead she climbed into the opposite end of the tub. She relished the brief flicker of annoyance she saw pass over his face. It was good to be reminded that even he had emotions that got the better of him sometimes. Even he wasn't completely impenetrable.

He had washed enough by then that the water in the bath was opaque by the time she got in. She watched her limbs disappear beneath the cloudy water, aware of his gaze as she slipped her knees beneath the surface and slid her heels along the bottom of the tub. To fuck with him, she stretched her legs out fully and lifted her feet up onto his shoulder, crossing them at the ankles and using him like a footrest.

To her surprise, he didn't shove her off. He didn't frown. Instead, he reached out an arm and hooked it around her calves. She watched as he cupped his hand over the top of shin and gently drew it up and down. In the glow from the light hanging above the tub, she couldn't help noticing the glint of the wedding band he wore.

"You haven't taken it off."

He glanced up at her, not quite following.

"The ring," she explained, tipping her chin towards his hand on her leg. "You're still wearing it."

He followed her gaze, his brow furrowing slightly when he caught sight of the ring, as if he'd forgotten he was wearing the thing until she explicitly reminded him of it. She wondered how that was possible. Every second she spent wearing the rings he'd given her, she was acutely aware of them: of their expense, their weight. Of the lie they sold, and the life they were saving—hers, at the expense of someone else's.

"Why shouldn't I wear it?" he wondered aloud. When she didn't answer, he continued, "When I pretend to be someone I'm not, I don't usually make a habit of slipping in and out of my cover."

"Oh, really? You don't, do you?"

He frowned at the derision in her voice. "What?"

"You slip in and out constantly! One second you're the hitman planning the job, the next you're—" She mimicked an overblown version of his accent. "—' _Madrid_ ' and _'The Palace Hotel_ ' and—"

"I don't talk like that," he interrupted.

"Yes, you do."

He opened his mouth to argue further, but she beat him to it.

"What was that back there, anyway? _Baby_?" she cooed, using the pet name he'd christened earlier, when he'd taken her up against the desk.

He shrugged, glancing down. "You started it."

"I wasn't the one who made you put on a ring."

"I wasn't the one who made you fuck me."

She rolled her eyes. "Please, you were asking for it."

" _I_ was?" He snorted. "Bullshit. If anyone was asking for it, _you_ were asking for it."

"I never ask for anything," she shot back.

He sighed. "Yes, I've noticed. You just take things instead."

She couldn't help it—she smiled at the exhaustion in his voice. And as if he couldn't help it either, he smiled back. The smile split open his usually firm face, softening the edges. For a moment, he looked kind, and she closed her eyes, savoring the sight. She knew when she opened them again, this brief moment would be long gone.

And so she squeezed her eyes shut tighter, imprinting the image on her mind out of necessity. She had had so few happy moments in her life that she had gotten into the habit of locking away any purely _good_ moment she happened to stumble across. She had locked away lots of moments over the years, and yet, there were never quite enough to get by. Never near enough.

She forced her eyes open before she could fall down that rabbit hole again. Her mind was drifting away from him—towards her son, towards her mother, towards those few good days she'd had so long ago—and she knew if she let it, that lost time would consume her. The drifting would never cease. She would be back in that hotel room, smoking herself into oblivion just for a chance to relive it all, rewrite it all.

Instead, she opened her eyes and she focused on him and she did not mourn the lack of a smile on his face. There was something better now—that look in his eyes. She knew it would distract her from everything, even her son. Even herself. That look was her ticket out of her mess of a mind, her sieve of a heart.

She let go of the breath she'd been holding when she heard him turn the knob to unstopper the drain. As the tub emptied around them, he lifted her left leg over his head, and deposited it on his right shoulder. She shifted forward, hooking her heels behind his shoulders and bending her knees to draw him close. His hands slid down her legs to her ass, to her hips—and then he reached back to catch the drain, just before the tub emptied completely.

They sat in barely two inches of water, her in his lap, his hand between her legs as they kissed. It didn't take long: the warmth of the bath had gotten to her, and his fingers, and his mouth. He wasn't whispering to her anymore, not about Madrid or anniversaries or first looks or first lines, but she replayed the old dialogue in her head anyway, just for herself.

 _I can't believe it's been ten years..._

In minutes, his hands were on her ass again, guiding her up and then down onto him, and she hissed aloud at the second entry, sucking in her breath. She was still open from earlier, but the soak in the tub had washed her clean, and the encore was grittier than the debut. She slipped her legs off his shoulders, her heels seeking some sort of purchase in the film of water that covered the bottom of the tub. But there was nothing to brace her feet against, and so instead she used her hands, and her mouth.

"Fuck!"

He swore when she bit his shoulder, his body jerking instinctively away from hers.

She didn't let him get far: she had one hand tangled in his wet hair and another clutching at his back, and besides, his brief outcry of pain had fueled her. She adjusted herself on top of him, pushing herself up and then back down again, relishing in his groan of pleasure this time, and letting off one of her own.

"You recover quickly," she commented when she had breath, glancing down between them, feeling the squeeze of his hands around her hipbones. He was near to bruising her, and she couldn't tell if it was in retaliation for the bite, or simply because he couldn't help it. To be honest, she didn't know which answer she preferred. She arched her back a little, adjusting their angle so she could feel him more fully. "Since when can you go for round two this fast?"

"Since always." His head was ducked down in between her breasts, and she could feel him smirking. His breath was hot against her damp skin. "It's just that you weren't sober enough that first time to go a second time and find out."

She pulled back, causing him to look up. She raised her eyebrows as she stared down at him. "You think I'm sober now?"

"Of course not. You're, what, five martinis in the hole? Six?" He chuckled briefly. "But if I know you, then this is probably as close to sober as you can ever hope to be."

"Fuck you!" she snarled. "You know nothing about me. You know _nothing_ about what I can hope to be."

He blinked at the sudden ferocity in her voice, staring at her blankly for a second while she glared furiously back.

"Well, yes," he agreed finally, the words leaving him slowly. "I suppose you're right about that, aren't you?"

There wasn't much talk after that. The only words they said to one another were strict commands: _more_ and _faster_ and _finish, goddamn you_.

After it was over, she was the first to leave. She extricated herself from around him, somehow making it to her feet and out of the tub without slipping, before heading into the bedroom to dry off and put on pajamas. When she came back five minutes later to brush her teeth, he was standing in front of the mirror, still naked. He caught her eye and pulled at the skin around his collarbone to show off the angry red welt at the joint of his neck and shoulder.

"You left a mark," he said, glaring at her through the glass. "People will see this tomorrow. It can't be covered up by a shirt."

"Who gives a shit?" she muttered, dumping her bag of toiletries onto the side of the sink so she could root around for her toothbrush. "Anniversary, right? Ten years—that's a long time. So the wife got a little rough to spice things up, who gives a fuck?" She shrugged, still digging around in her bag. "Or maybe that's from the whore you're screwing on the side. If you want, I can give you a shiner from the missus to match. Whatever way you want to sell it works for me."

She finally found her toothbrush in the depths of her bag. When she straightened up, she saw he was staring at her, his hand still on his neck.

"What are you standing there for? Move!" she ordered, shoving him aside. "You're blocking the sink and I need to wash the taste of you out of my mouth."


End file.
